Bangalore to Kerala trip in Jan 2013 - Advice needed

Visited Munnar, it was fabulous !!
I took the route via Salem , Perundurai. It took 8 hours with 1 hour break in between.The journey was little tiring as the road from chinar to munnar is narrow and winding ghat road. I could see many patch repairs are done in the road.
Linea is as usual king in ghat roads, my daughter was asleep in the back seat most of the time (this was rare in my swift )
Attaching some pictures,

Don't hurry on your trip from Thekkady to Kumarakom; on the Kumily-Kottayam road you will have chances of meeting speedtrap cameras at many of the rare straight stretches

Click to expand...

phate_b,
Your information was very helpful , I was very cautious while driving :steering, and I saw 2 cars and a auto were caught by police at a turn on Thekkady-Kumarkom Road. I am sure that is for over speeding. Saw few accidents also, road from Munnar to Thekkady is actually very challenging as there were many blind turns while climbing down the hill, however the road is very good. Traffic was heavy from Thekaddy to Kumarkom.
It took 7 hours from Munnar to Kumarkom including 1 hour break at Periyar Lake in Thekkady.
My Google navigation was ok most of the time, but twice that nice speaking lady took me to wrong road. :shocked

I noticed that traffic poilice checking is more towards the south Kerala, when i visited Kerala in Nov'2011 i saw people being stopped for seat belts and helmets.
We were lucky to escape one such checking where my friend was driving and i was in the passenger seat another friend in the rear. Both of us were wearing sealt belts but after some time my fried removed his seat belt and i had it on as we deviated from the highway (near Kottayam i think) and enterned some small curvy roads. Suddenly after one curve there were these cops who stopped our car and my friend was asked by the constable to come to the inspector (who was near the police jeep in one corner). My friend went to the inspector who asked to pay a fine and my friend enquired what was the fine for. He was informed that the fine was for not wearing the seat belt, then my friend very confidently replied that he was wearing the seat belt. Both my friends were with the cops as i was inside the car with the seatbelt still on and checking maps on my iphone. My frined pointed that even the passenger is wearing the seat belt which actually caused some doubt in the cops mind and they let us go informing that seat belt is a must. :evilsmile

This Kerala trip actually was a long pending one , long 10 years ! from the year 2003 my wife was forcing me to plan for a Kerala tour, and whenever any friends of ours tells about their trip in Kerala my wife used to give me an angry look. I don't know why but for some reason or the other I could not plan a trip to Kerala for so many years.
It's not that we have not visited great places in between, in contrary we had been to the most exotic places on earth on these years, but I had always wished to visit The Gods own country sometime and when we thought of taking a vacation in Jan 2013 there was no doubt it had to be Kerala.

I planned this trip seating in US as I was in deputation their for the entire 2012 , and my travel back to Bangalore was confirmed on 31 dec 2012.
I had two option for this trip driving My Linea or go by flight/train+hire local taxi.

My wife opposed the driving as I will get only 2 days after a long return journey from US and associated jet lag. After thinking over it I finally decided to drive myself and convinced my wife that if I feel sleepy I will immediately stop and take rest somewhere. But the real reason is ..ha ha you know guys ..how can you miss such an opportunity to drive your favorite car that is also after such a long gap ?? I was badly missing my Linea for all these days and started dreaming of driving my car on highways in the midst of green forests and mountains. So finalized the plan after going through travelogues in various sites and suggested routes from JRavi sir, Ramjn, Shams , phate_b ...

On 4th morning I changed my oem speakers to infinity comp and sony coax (after so long years , I fitted a very light sunfilm (very difficult to get noticed by cops) the Autoshop (koramongla) person assured me that it will cut the uv and heat to great extent , and I must say the film is quite good and kept my car much cooler than without any sunfilm. Previous day I changed my rear tires also (yoko c drive), So preparation for a long highway trip was done.

At night we packed all the bag and took full tank of diesel.
We started our journey next day morning, the plan was to start @ 4 am but due to some delay we could start only @ 6 am.

I took the Bangalore Hosur, Salem, Perundurai route as I thought it will take less time if I take 4 lane highways.
No doubt the other route is scenic but I have traveled through that route twice while going to ooty sometime back.
As told by everyone, the route from Udumalaet to Munnar is very scenic !

Attaching some pics of Munnar, Periyar Lake in Thekkady, Kumarkom, Aleppy Beach and House boat in Vembanad Lake.

Hai,
If you have done the trip,please give which route you have taken for you trip.I am in cochin and planning to make atrip to banglore via Mysore with my family in my linea MJD.We have done a velankanni trip-to and fro 1200km about 6 months back in my Linea and the trip was wonderful.I took 11 hrs to cover 600 km.Stated at 5 am from cochin and reached at 4 pm.Experienced some blocks in palani and some places .

- - - Merged Post - - -

Hai,
If you have done the trip,please give which route you have taken for you trip.I am in cochin and planning to make atrip to banglore via Mysore with my family in my linea MJD.We have done a velankanni trip-to and fro 1200km about 6 months back in my Linea and the trip was wonderful.I took 11 hrs to cover 600 km.Stated at 5 am from cochin and reached at 4 pm.Experienced some blocks in palani and some places .

- - - Merged Post - - -

Hai,
If you have done the trip,please give which route you have taken for you trip.I am in cochin and planning to make atrip to banglore via Mysore with my family in my linea MJD.We have done a velankanni trip-to and fro 1200km about 6 months back in my Linea and the trip was wonderful.I took 11 hrs to cover 600 km.Stated at 5 am from cochin and reached at 4 pm.Experienced some blocks in palani and some places .

- - - Merged Post - - -

Hai,
If you have done the trip,please give which route you have taken for you trip.I am in cochin and planning to make atrip to banglore via Mysore with my family in my linea MJD.We have done a velankanni trip-to and fro 1200km about 6 months back in my Linea and the trip was wonderful.I took 11 hrs to cover 600 km.Stated at 5 am from cochin and reached at 4 pm.Experienced some blocks in palani and some places .

Awesome pictures Soumen.
I think some of the lake with boad houses are from the Kumarokom, Vembanda Lake.
Could you throw some light on the location of some of these places, look very awesome. Would like to visit these places (have been to costal Kerala) but would be great to visit the interiors next time around

Hai,
If you have done the trip,please give which route you have taken for you trip.I am in cochin and planning to make atrip to banglore via Mysore with my family in my linea MJD.We have done a velankanni trip-to and fro 1200km about 6 months back in my Linea and the trip was wonderful.I took 11 hrs to cover 600 km.Stated at 5 am from cochin and reached at 4 pm.Experienced some blocks in palani and some places .

Click to expand...

Suggest u to take thrissur-shoranur-nilambur-gudalur-gundulpet route to mysore... Its the shortest one.. I've taken dis road recently and its good..